The Ace: She was by far and away the most competent and consistent of the candidates (and the eventual winner) during the run of ten tasks, being on the winning team for eight of them, convincingly winning her first two turns as project manager, and usually proving herself a Hypercompetent Sidekick when trusted with important tasks. Even when she achieved the rare dishonour of steering her team to zero orders on the baby food task, Lord Sugar and Karren quickly made it clear they laid the blame almost wholly with Akeem and Stephanie, and didn't seriously consider firing her.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: Lord Sugar likened her leadership at Silverstone to an army sergeant major while Karren mentioned that she made Gordon Ramsay look soft by comparison.
Failed a Spot Check: She failed to notice that her team's baby food's brand name read as "First Time Dies".
Flawless Victory: Had one of the strongest track records of any of the show's winners; the only real blemish on her record was her losing as project manager on the Week 10 task, and even that was almost entirely the fault of Akeem and Stephanie.note (She did admittedly fail to spot the "First Time F**dies" error on their label, though it likely wouldn't have made much difference if she had done)
While Akeem was project manager in the gaming task, and Aaron had the original idea for their team's game, Harpreet was responsible for the majority of the ideas that actually went into the finished product.
It happened again two weeks later, when Akeem stepped up as project manager once more. This time, Harpreet's sales skills did a lot to salvage the task.
Only Sane Woman: In Week 10, with Diverse messing up both their branding and product and Akeem and Stephanie making a fatal error with their branding, Harpreet seemed to be the only one that week who did anything right. Even following bringing in all of the candidates back to the boardroom after Aaron's firing, Lord Sugar made it clear right from the outset that Harpreet in no danger of facing dismissal.
Kathryn
Expy: Of Claire from Season 4. Won the first task as project manager, was brought back into the boardroom a total of five times and finished as runner-up on the final task.
Ink-Suit Actor: Lampshaded in the fifth task, in which she noted that a lot of the character's appearance and ideas were based heavily on her own.
It's All About Me: When project managing the first task, she constantly made snap decisions based on her personal preferences, and then used the fact that she personally liked the decision she'd made as proof that it was the correct one. Ironically, this actually worked to the team's advantage, as it ended up producing an advertising campaign that was coherent, if poorly executed.
Sick Episode: Ended up getting sick in Week 4, leading Alex and Akshay to run the kitchen without her.
Stephanie
Failed a Spot Check: She came up the name "First Time Foodies", but in attempting to make the "O"'s look like bowls, she made the mistake of making it look like she had typed "First Time F Dies". She didn't spot her own mistake!
No Sense of Direction: She and Kathyrn were criticised by Tim for losing their way in the Silverstone museum.
Poor Communication Kills: She finished the tour of Silverstone thirty minutes early, with the result that their clients were left waiting over an hour for their food, some of this time spent waiting with unprepared tables. This includes a subsequent forty-five minute delay in actually preparing the food.
She also hadn’t properly tried to find out from the clients what they wanted, leading to a promise of a luxury experience that never happened.
Much like Kevin all the way back in Season 4, she was so dedicated to pushing a Green Aesop that she paid no attention to making the product actually appealing, causing her team to lose. Fortunately for her, she avoided committing Kevin's errors when it came to choosing people to bring into the final boardroom, saving her from the axe.
Also, like Solomon in Season 10, she made the mistake of entering the interviews unprepared, with a business plan that was described as a "glorified brochure" and had no mention of profit or loss that her proposed business was projected to make.
Never My Fault: She repeatedly insisted that her game idea was absolutely fine, and that the task's failure was purely down to Francesca's error with the name. While Lord Sugar did consider Francesca's errors to be a greater sin, he nonetheless called out Brittany on the fact that her "unique selling point" was overly preachy, and the game's design too simplistic. Ironically, the game itself was not preachy (a simple loop of 'collect items' is not an unusual game mechanic) but Brittany's desperate insistence that the game was deep and meaningful and "the first" videogame ever to try and send a positive messagenote It's not difficult to find games specifically about animals in the Arctic, even. Consider Venture Arctic. was offputting. Even at the end of the episode she insisted it would have won with a better name.
Captain Oblivious: Seemed to think that he made all of the key decisions that made his team win in Week 7, even when his leadership was continually criticized by Lord Sugar and Tim as completely weak-willed.
When leading the team in Week 5 he would make decisions and then immediately change his mind and go with the ideas the other candidates put forward instead. Though this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as the other candidates' ideas almost always proved better than his own, and he rejected the only one that was clearly worse (Amy's backstory for their character).
It happened again in Week 7, with Tim noting that he threw away his own ideas for the team's driverless pod almost as soon as the task began. Though much like two weeks prior, he got away with it because the other team crashed and burned.
The Eeyore: Was criticised in the Wales task for his overly depressing tour of the mines, especially compared to the zip line that preceded it.
Four Is Death: At the time of his firing, he was the fourth consecutive man to be fired.
Last of His Kind: He was the last man among the candidates to be fired.
The logo he came up with for the men's cruise line at best looked like a rotting banana, and at worst looked like a turd. To add insult to injury, he didn't even include the brand name on the logo.
It happened again in the baby food task, where not only did the packaging that he and Stephanie came up not have the flavour of the food on the front (instead placing it with the ingredients), but they made the logo look like the food's name was "First Time Dies" (or as one retailer put it, "First Time Fuck Dies") instead of "First Time Foodies" as they were trying to show.
Aaron
Epic Fail: Continued the men's abysmal start to the season by steering the team to a grand total of zero orders (compared to the women's 11,000) on the second task. For good measure, his also earned zero orders on the baby food task (though at least that time the other team also failed to sell anything).
Honor Before Reason: When one of the prospective buyers asked whether he'd be willing to alter the brown colour of the toothbrush the men created in the second week, he refused, claiming that magic wands are traditionally brown. Aside from this claim being questionable at best — while a lot of magic wands in fiction are brown and wooden, many others are black with a white stripe at the top — showing such an inflexible attitude did nothing to impress the buyer, who ended up not ordering anything from them.
Precision F-Strike: During the review of selling on shopping channels, it was revealed he started a presentation with "shit" on live television.
Running Gag: Done unwittingly with his design for the men's toothbrush in the second week, which was compared by one prospective buyer to a turd, causing a bemused Lord Sugar to wonder why the men kept creating products and logos which resembled faecal matter.
Akshay
Bystander Syndrome: By the third task, he was being accused on multiple fronts of doing nothing.
Ignored Expert: Claimed to be a car enthusiast, and was looked over for the autonomous vehicle task of Week 7 in favor of Sophie, who completely flopped when it came to their product's theming.
Got off to a less-than-auspicious start in the process by having the men produce what Lord Sugar and Karren deemed the single worst advertising campaign they'd ever seen on the show. Yes, even worse than Pantsman.
He ended up being fired after his sixth appearance in the boardroom. On top of that, he was in the losing team in eight tasks, tying him with Tom from Season 7 and Frances from Season 12 as having the most losses of any candidate in Apprentice UK history — and even then, Tom and Frances were on the winning team in three tasks and two tasks respectively compared to Akshay's one.
Misplaced Wildlife: When asked about the penguins in the Week 5 video game, he claimed that there were penguins in the Arctic only for the gaming expert to tell him there are none. The team then attempted to explain it but it didn’t help.
Plot Armor: Arguably; he survived being brought back to the final boardroom five times - but only really got away with not being fired in Week 8 by promising to take on the Project Manager role in the next task. He kept his promise, but still got fired because he made a mess of leading the task.
Tempting Fate: After being on the winning team in Week 6 and consequently getting his first reward, he predicted that it would be the first of many. As it turned out, it was the only one he got during his entire time on the show.
Nick
Bystander Syndrome: Was accused of taking a backseat in the both the first and second tasks, causing him to come dangerously close to getting fired when he was brought into the final boardroom for the latter task. Lord Sugar told him he would project manage the next task...
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: ...and as project manager, he changed character completely. He dominated the task, using his expertise from the drinks industry, and Vodify turned out to be a hit.
One-Hit Wonder: However, his performance in this task didn't save him from being fired for his lack of track record in Week 8.invoked
Exact Words: When the men took their toothbrush to a focus group of five children, only one out of the five children liked it. He therefore claimed that "50% of the boys liked it" — by which he meant that one of the two boys liked it. Alex instantly worked out that he was massaging the figures, but Aaron figured it was good enough to use in their presentation.
Narm Charm: His train tour on the Wales task, which was described by Tim as "so bad it was good", which Nick took as a compliment.invoked
Not Helping Your Case: In the first episode's initial boardroom he claimed that he thought the men's logo was actually good, then clumsily tried to backtrack. Fortunately for him, having a terrible taste in logos was pretty far down the list compared to the blunders committed by Akeem and Harry.
Sophie
Bystander Syndrome: Was called out in Week 4 for failing to sell anything and in Week 5 was brought back into the boardroom based primarily on lack of contribution.
Didn't Think This Through: She went into the first task wearing a green dress, which turned out to be an issue when her group tried to create a social media advert using a Chroma Key effect. The solution was to just cut her out of the adverts as best as possible.
Informed Attribute: Became Project Manager of Week 7 on the understandable basis that her interest in interior design would be good for a task about creating autonomous vehicles, then proceeded to create one of the tackiest interiors one could possibly make for this type of product, especially given that their primary client was the National Exhibition Centre, who near-certainly would've wanted a vehicle that's more generic in theming and laser-focused on getting people comfortably around their sprawling complex.
Never My Fault: After losing her second turn as project manager, she quite literally insisted that everyone else on the team except for her was at fault for the loss, and that they would have won had they been truly behind her concept. Lord Sugar quickly pointed out that she didn't even really back her own concept, judging by how many times she had changed it.
Poor Communication Kills: Her second and last stint as Project Manager was a mess of miscommunication - she kept backtracking on whether or not she wanted an 'experience pod' or a 'party pod', claimed she didn’t want bold colours on their pod yet put vivid pink upholstery and a karaoke machine of all things inside, and ended up putting off potential customers with the finished product, at least some of whom claimed the design looked too restrictive. It all contributed to her firing, alongside her poor leadership.
Amy
Bystander Syndrome: She was accused of not stepping forward to be team leader on any of the tasks - in Week 6, after saying it was not the task for her to lead. Lord Sugar's decision was to eject her from the process.
Expy: To Jackie from Series 14. Both of whom are North American women who were called out on (and eventually fired) for their tendency to manipulate other people into being Project Manager. The main difference being that while at least Jackie was a competent salesperson, Amy's sales record was... questionable to say the least.
When leading her sub-team in Week 4, she removed Stephanie, who had been performing well as the lead salesperson, so that she would have a chance to shine. As Lord Sugar pointed out in the initial boardroom, he would have been more impressed with Amy had she recognised that Stephanie was doing well in the role and left her be.
She committed the same fatal error as both Robert from Season 10 and Rebecca from Season 12, namely thinking that she could coast under the radar by refusing to take up the project manager's role until she came across as task that was precisely tailored to her skill-set. This ended up leading directly to her firing, when she refused to step up to manage the Week 6 task and instead browbeat Kathryn into taking on the role.
Wall of Blather: She came up with an absurdly convoluted backstory for the main character of the team's videogame in Week 5. Even Akeem, who was pretty anonymous as project manager and accepted nearly every suggestion that his team-mates made over his own, largely rejected the story that Amy came up with and created a much more concise one.
Francesca
Failed a Spot Check: She repeatedly failed to spot that she had misspelled the name of the team's game as "Artic Saviour"in Week 5, which Lord Sugar considered such a basic error that he considered it grounds for firing her.
Grammar Correction Gag: She got told off various times for spelling "Arctic" as "Artic".
It's All About Me: Much like Kathryn in the previous week, when she project managed the second task she took a very dictatorial approach — which ended up working out well as it produced a product that had a coherent vision (even if the execution could have been better) and ended up defeating the men in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
What Were They Selling Again?: Karren thought that "Artic Saviour", the name she had come up with their Arctic-themed videogame, made the game look like it was about articulated lorries. Lord Sugar seemed to have the same opinion come the boardroom.
When negotiating with the corporate client in Week 4, neither he nor Kathryn nor Akshay thought to bring up their catch of the day, leading to them missing out on bigger sells from the corporate client. What’s more, he never negotiated a time frame, leading to himself and Akshay missing the lunch trade for the corporate client.
To add insult to injury, he gave the Cornwall team a surprisingly complex recipe for their crab which the girls believed was never mentioned in the brainstorming meeting before they split up.
One-Hit Wonder: The one thing that he did right during his stint as project manager was ensuring that the fish they caught was prepared to a high quality, which ensured they were able to command a decent sales price — if not quite as good as they had initially hoped, thanks to them missing the lunch rush — and thus avoided finishing the task in the red, which would have just added insult to injury.invoked
What Were You Thinking?: Key among the reasons for both his firing and Lord Sugar's naming him as the show's worst-ever project manager was his forgetting to mention the catch of the day during his sales pitch to the corporate client. Which, for perspective, would have been like Paul from Season 3 forgetting to mention at any point in the task that they were selling British produce, in addition to the catalogue of errors he committed regarding product choice and cooking equipment.
Navid
Casanova Wannabe: A bisexual version; after his firing, it was reported in the press that he had made advances on several male and female contestants from prior seasons, and did so to this season's contestants during filming.
Extreme Doormat: What Tim considered him to be. He claimed to have all sorts of ideas but didn't have the courage to push them through.
Situational Sociability: As his exit quote demonstrated, he can actually be quite flamboyant and confident at times, he just spent most of his time on the show as an introvert.
Shama
Expy: Of Nurun from Season 10 as they were both Muslim women who left during the third week of their respective series. However, while Nurun was fired in Week 3, Shama left before the task was announced.
Non-Gameplay Elimination: It was pre-emptively revealed two days before the episode aired (after The Sun newspaper leaked the story) that Shama would be leaving the show during the third episode due to health reasons. Specifically, her rheumatoid arthritis meant that taking part in the show eventually became too physically demanding.
Out of Focus: Between her curtailed time on the show, and the women winning the first two tasks in Curb Stomp Battles, she didn't get a whole lot of screentime; the most she did was argue with Francesca over the design of the team's toothbrush in the second task.
Conor
Informed Ability: Claimed to be an expert when it comes to producing apps, but what was ultimately presented looked amateurish, which Lord Sugar took issue with.
It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: A video game variant; when one of the prospective buyers pointed out that his app looked very boring, he claimed that it was only meant to show kids how to brush their teeth, and wasn't meant to be overly flashy. Somehow, this failed to win over the buyer.invoked
Harry
Genre Blind: He tried pulling the "I shouldn't be fired because I didn't do anything in the task" card in the final boardroom, clearly not realising that's usually an even quicker way of getting fired than admitting your mistakes.
I Warned You: Warned the rest of his sub-team that the logo they were coming up was terrible and would lose them the task — which it did. However, the way he went about warning them was so obnoxious that it played a major role in his getting fired.
